Hello friends,
We had a great week of Valentine's day. A special thanks to Ms. Chrisy and her friends for having us on the special day snack time. My little friends were so excited to see new toys and books in your classroom and almost forgot to eat snack that day!
We also enjoyed the Community Circle leading by Ms. Emer on Thursday. We learned some French words with familiar song. I saw that my friends sat and joined the whole school circle-time in a very nice way!! Thank you Ms. Emer for offering such a special learning opportunity for us! (And thank you Mr. Bart for delicious crepes. C'est tres bon!!)
In the
past two weeks, we enjoyed various sensory activities, such as finger (and hand) painting, bird seeds exploration and "Feele Goop" of cornstarch mess! I know you also like to mix colors and see how it changes. I will have those experiment sometime soon again :-)
We're exploring the world of fantasy upcoming week. I am planning to feature the world of fairy tale through story time, art work, and outdoor playtime. Hope you will have great fun with me.
For whom missed class last week for being sickness, we sent out heartful "air-kisses" to you from our classroom. We all hope you'll be back to our class next Tuesday.
Please take care of yourself and see you on
Tuesday, my dear friends!
Ms. Kuniko
Hello my friends and parents,
Our Valentine's party is on next Tuesday. I've sent out your artwork-letter to your special person in time for Valentine's Day. I hope your special person will enjoy it!
As Ms. Marni sent out an e-mail to all families, we will have Valentine's exchange in our class and the party as a whole school event (start around 10:00 for about an hour). Kids in my class have made their own cute Valentine's bag the other day, so please just bring some small valentine's to friends. As for the snack, it would be nice if you bring "regular snack" for your child, since PDO class doesn't have a helper. However, of course, your child will also enjoy some extra Valentine treats from the party snack tray.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
Happy Valentine's Day to you all!
Kuniko Fuse
Dear my friends,
At the Community Circle on Thursday, I really enjoyed to talk about seasons and Japanese traditional of bean-throwing festival of early spring. How fun it was to run around and throw beans to "the evils" with saying "Oni-wa-soto (meaning 'Evils, get out!')" to get them away from you!! At home, I enjoyed this custom with my family as well, and welcomed a new season of spring with fortune!
During the past two weeks, we learned and played a lot under the theme of "Robot and Construction." We read many books in this unit and I am so proud that you have been such good listeners at the story time! We also enjoyed building
a "secret space" with tables and scarves in our classroom and playing hide and seek. At a craft time, you made your "Robotic box" with your imagination. I found you had such a fun time with exploring various materials such as pom-poms, feathers, straws etc.
I know that you also enjoyed some scientific experiences. On a sunny day, we had a nature observation in our backyard. We walked around and listened to the birds singing, looking for little dandelions, watching the baby daffodils growing, and more. I am looking forward to find something more next time. In the classroom, we enjoyed the experiment of mixing "color water." Oh, you looked so excited to mixing one color to another to see how it changes!
This week and
next week, we're exploring new unit of "Communication and Sending Messages" and of course, Valentine's Day. I want to focus on both verbal and non-verbal communication through this unit. I am thinking to have each child make an art piece to send someone special. So, PARENTS in my class, I would like to ask you to bring an addressed-envelope for your child (to grandparents, to yourselves... or to anyone special to send your kids' artwork).
The Valentine's Day is on Tuesday next week. We will make a Valentine's bag this Thursday so that each of my friends has their own bag at the Valentine's party. The details for the party will be sent out sometime soon later.
Thank you. Let's have another fun week at school!
Ms.
Kuniko
Hello friends,
How much fun we have had during the past weeks! I knew you would LOVE this unit theme, "Thing That Go/Going On A Trip." I can tell that you all learned a lot from this unit. We sort out trains by color, make our PDO trains with stickers, rolling cars down on the slope and more. We completed our new mural art of "Painting with Wheels." What a great messy fun to make it! I also enjoyed the interactive story time with you. Every morning, you listened to the new story very well and talked a lot about what you found in the books.
We started to practice "cutting playdough" with a plastic knife. You seemed very curious on the knife and
poked the playdough with it at first. However, once I showed how to "cut" a playdough-ball, you had interests in doing it by yourselves. We always have a great time with playdough, don't we?
One more thing I really loved to see this week was you're learning "to share" with your friends. I know that it is always difficult to share your favorite toys with friends, but you started to listen to my reminders well and learn that you cannot take others's toys away. I am also very proud of you all became to express your thoughts like "it's mine" and/or "I want it, too" in appropriate ways.
We're heading to the new two-week unit of "Robots, Machines and Building things." I am thiking to start with "construction" as we gradually shifting from the
previouse theme (trucks/vechels). I will focus on learning the concept of opposit (big-small, heavy-light, long-short) with some sensory activities during this unit.
I hope you will have a great weekend. Looking forward to seeing your big smiles on next Tuesday!
Kuniko Fuse
your PDO T/TH teacher
Hello friends,
It was great to see you all back to school with big smiles last week. We did some fan activities related the weekly unit theme of "Winter." The snowflakes you made with dropper painting and glitter look very beautiful! We'll put them on the classroom wall for while. We also enjoyed winter stories like "The Mittens," and "Mine, All Mine." Now I see you all are getting to have good listening ears during the story time.
I've noticed that our snack time is a good reveiw time of mid-day. We always have fun talk about the what we learned during the morning circle time or story time, and somtimes we count numbers of your snacks, talk about shapes, colors etc. I always feel
so happy to sit with you all at the table and have fun conversation with you.
We're moving to our new unit of "Things that Go/Go on a Trip" this week and next week. I am planning to feature trains, buses, airplanes and trucks each day. As Ms. Whitney mentioned, yes, we're going to make our "PDO Friendship Freight Train" as our art project! I'm sure we'll have super fun time.
See you on Tuesday, friends!
Ms. Kuniko
PDO T/TH teacher
Dear my friends and families,
I believe you're enjoying winter break with lots of fun. To all parents, I would like to express my deepest appreciation for your generose supports throughout the semester. I had have great learning experience with your children, thanks to your help and understandings. I wish you all have a joyful family time during this winter break and have a wonderful new year.
Looking forward to seeing your happy faces in January!
Sincererly,
Kuniko Fuse
you PDO T/TH Teacher
Dear my friends,
Last week, we had a great time to learn about Hanukkah at our Community Circle. Thank you so much, Ms. Anna and her helpers, to offering such a great learning opportunity for us! Some of our friends enjoyed touching dreidles with great curiosity, others loved to taste latke. We also enjoyed "fallen leaves adventure" outside playtime with raking, tossing, rolling over the fallen pecan leaves. Oh, what a great fun was that!!
On of the high-light moment for me was to watch your baby-talking with each other, giggling and
smiling. I can see that all of you are gradually learning to "play with friends" (with some struggles, for sometime :-). I am so happy to have such a precious little friends like you.
This week, the last week of this semester, we'll make some more holiday decorations with papers, tin foils and paint(!!). We will read books about holiday traditions, and of course, sing holiday songs together. Our school-wide Holiday Party will be on Thursday. (Details will be informed via yahoo- group mail shortly.) Parents and families are invited to join this. Parents, you will have a lot of "picture
moments",especially those who joined the school for the first year. So, please don't miss it!!
See you at school on Tuesday, and let's have a great final week of the semester!!
Ms. Kuniko
(your PDO T/TH teacher)
Hello friends,
It's been a while since I posted last blog. We had a busy and fun month of November with learning anything about Autumn. The "autumn leaves art" we made together looked very beautiful to decorate our classroom. We examined different colors and shapes of autum leaves and put them on the paper. I found that you were getting better to pick tiny pieces of sticky tape and put them on the paper! It is always fun to play with sticky tapes, right? I am also glad to see that all of you were great helpers to make the friendship-fruit salad for our Thanksgiving feast. You showed a great appetite at the feast table, which, I beleve, is the best way to show the appreciation to the food.
Well, I cannot beleive it's already December.
The holiday season has come and we have only four classes before the winter break! Are you ready for holiday fun? In the coming two weeks, we will learn holiday traditions, sing and play some holiday music, and make some crafts for fun. I hope you all enjoy this holiday season with me and friends!
Lastly, I am very excited to have a new friend in our class starting from this month. I am so glad to see that some of you have already recognized her name. Now that we have four friends in total, I believe that we'll have more variety of fun!
Looking forward to seeing your happy smiles in the class.
Ms. Kuniko
(your T/TH PDO teacher)
Hello Cornerstone Families,
We had a great fun time of gardening at our Community Circle yesterday! All of our kids were very good listeners to learn about compost soil, how to plant and take care of the bulbs. Oh, how excited our kiddos were to dig and plant bulbs!! I cannot wait to see all bulbs are sprouting (our kids must be so excited to find the first tiny green tip in the ground :-).
I would like to say thank you to all parents who came and helped us yesterday. And huge special thanks to Sh who worked hard (weeding, cleaning the compost area, and more!) to prepare for the
project.
We still have extra space in our backyard for extra bulbs. I am going to assist M/W/F children to plant those bulbs on next Friday, after our Thanksgiving Feast (I will announce details sometime next week.)
Thank you again to you all.
Have a great weekend!
Kuniko Fuse
(PD T/TH teacher)
Hello T/TH families!
I am going to lead our next Community Circle, scheduled on THIS Thursday, November 10th. We've had two Community Circles so far and both were on Fridays. So, this will be the first Community Circle for T/TH families. This is a whole school activity time and it's from 11:30am until the and of the school day. If you have any questions on Community Circle (in general), please do not hesitate to ask any of our teachers.
On Thursday, I am planning a gardening project. Your children are going
to plant flower bulbs in our backyard. Please feel free to join us and help your kiddos! I would like to ask you to bring some gardening gadgets such as small gardening shovels, watering cans, if you have any. We have some at school but I'm afraid it won't be enough for all kids.
Weather... It looks to be fine that day, but if the weather gets really terrible, I will do some indoor activities to introduce Japanese culture.
Thank you so much for your support.
Looking forward to having a great gardening time with your kids!!
Kuniko Fuse
